


Continental Drift

by 51stCenturyFox



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode: s09e10 Road Trip, Friendship, Gen, M/M, Platonic Hurt/Comfort, Post-episode tag, Team Free Will
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-16
Updated: 2014-01-16
Packaged: 2018-01-08 23:11:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1138571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/51stCenturyFox/pseuds/51stCenturyFox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean drives away, leaving Castiel and Sam to find their own way back home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Continental Drift

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to lawsontl for the beta! <3

Sam shivers as the Impala’s taillights disappear in the rain, and Castiel rubs his bicep, surprising him with the simple touch. “You’re cold,” Cas says.

“I am,” Sam replies after a long moment. “Where are we?”

“Still in…” Cas pauses, "Pennsylvania. I’d transport us back to the bunker, but I’m not at full power.”

Sam swallows a rueful laugh. “Yeah. I know the feeling.”

“We do have a car, though.” Cas tilts his head at the gold Continental parked along the edge of the bridge, and they walk towards it. He frowns. “Crowley called this a pimpmobile.”

“It is, sorta.” Sam nods as Cas opens the passenger side door for him. He’s not fragile, but it’s kind of nice. The car smells like, well, old car, and the cloying coconut-scented air freshener jammed into a vent, once the breath of the heater kicks in. It looks like a car he’s driven once, a while back. “So you can steer this boat?” 

“Adequately.” Castiel situates himself and revs the engine, pulling away from the bridge, in the same direction Dean’s Impala had taken. “I can drive us back now, if you want me to.”

“I’m tired,” Sam says quietly, and it hits him just how tired he is. Not just tired. Weary to the bone. “Get a motel?”

“Okay.” Cas nods. 

“And some food,” Sam can feel the bulge of his wallet in his back pocket and there are credit cards in there. He can’t remember the last time he ate, besides a turkey sandwich in the middle of a false dream. “Hot food.” 

“Of course.” 

They drive in silence to the west, towards the next town; no point in staying anywhere near Abaddon and her goons, if they’re looking, though it seems that she and Crowley have bigger fish to fry than Winchesters. Sam turns on the radio and rap pours out. “You _like_ this?” he asks, and Castiel shrugs. Sam fiddles the knob, passing over modern country and the classic rock station, though he pauses for a moment at the strains of Eric Clapton pining for Layla. He finally turns the radio off as Cas pulls into the lot of a standard chain restaurant, one of the ubiquitous TGIAppleChili’s places - not a diner, and for that he’s glad. It’s early enough that they’re still serving.

 

“Have a beer with me,” Sam urges, and Castiel acquiesces easily. Sam bypasses the salads and grilled chicken and decides on a very atypical-for-him New York strip that sounds pretty delectable. Maybe he needs the iron. 

“Do you think I would like this?” Castiel asks, pointing at the fajitas on the menu, and Sam smiles. It feels strange, smiling. There was an angel controlling his face fairly recently. His face, his brain, his...everything. While he slept. Things are falling into place now; those missing hours he now realizes belonged to someone else entirely. He’s aware of them but he wants witness corroboration, wants to ask Dean questions, to sort memories from dreams, but that’ll come later.

“Sure.” Castiel wanting to eat anything is still new.

“I suppose I got used to it,” Cas says. “There’s...enjoyment to be had in so many things humans do.” 

A server passes holding a tray bearing a loudly sizzling platter, and Castiel’s eyes widen comically. Sam wishes Dean were here to see it and dips his head.

“It looks like too much food. I think I’ll stick with beer,” Cas decides, making a face as he drinks.

 

They sit quietly, waiting, sipping. Sam itches to check his phone for news, feels like he’s missed things, but he’s too bushed to really bother. And he could give two shits about hunting anything for a while. He suspects Cas feels the same way, though he’s back in business now, too. Suddenly, he remembers something; Crowley, injecting Kevin’s blood when he thought no one could see. He mentions it, and Cas nods slowly. 

Maybe Crowley’s moving towards being human at the same time Cas moves back to grace. The world is fucking strange, that’s for certain.

“So you’re…” Sam lets his question about Cas’s remaining humanity fall and instead digs into the steak set before him. 

After Sam’s eaten, Castiel’s gaze meets his over the table, the empty beer glasses laced with foam. “Dean will be back,” he says. “I wouldn’t worry.” His brow wrinkles as if he’s actually very worried, but Sam nods in reply.

 

The motel room is typical; Sam strips to his boxers -- his shirt smells weird; not sweaty, just weird, but he supposes it’s been through a lot since he first put it on, and he wasn’t the one wearing it -- and slides under the covers of one of the beds as Castiel wards the room against angels and demons alike. 

“We’ll need to get you a new tattoo,” Cas says, nodding at Sam’s bare chest. 

He looks down at the unmarred skin. “Huh. Okay.” 

“I acquired one in Enochian, when I was…” 

_Human,_ Sam thinks. _Vulnerable. Homeless._ He remembers Cas leaving the bunker shortly after arriving. “It’s my fault isn’t it?” he mumbles, “that you had to stay away.”

“No. Not your fault,” Castiel assures him. “Nothing was your fault.” 

Not true, Sam thinks. The last thing he remembers before sliding into slumber is Cas tucking a strand of hair out of his eyes. He knows Cas is Dean’s angel; there’s no other way to put it, and he’s here because of Dean, probably. But he feels comforted anyway. 

 

Judging by the rumpled bedspread, Castiel has slept, or at least lounged on the other bed. Out of the shower, Sam dresses silently and gratefully accepts the vending machine bottle of orange juice Cas brings back. 

 

They stop again in another town on the way back and he gets a tattoo, in the same place as the old one. Dean would have joked about getting an anti-possession tramp stamp. Castiel reads the health department inspection notice on the wall and in the car on the way back to the bunker, muses that he hadn’t checked for anything like that when he’d gotten his. “Definitely too trusting,” he mutters.

“You didn’t have your shots, either,” Sam points out. “You could have gotten a disease.”

Cas looks taken aback. “I suppose you’re right. I was...lucky.”

“Could have gotten a venereal disease, too,” Sam adds. “Since you _got_ lucky.” It’s such a Dean thing to say, and Cas rolls his eyes at him. 

“Reapers handing out diseases. That would be ironic, though redundant,” Cas replies, and Sam laughs out loud. He’s driving this time, and he turns on the radio. He picks the rap station, why the hell not, because it seems to fit the modded Continental like Led Zep fits the Impala, and catches Cas jiggling a knee to the beat. He decides to go the whole nine and flips on the cruise control, imagining his brother flipping his shit, calling him a lazy douche, and smiles. 

“Dean’ll figure it out,” Sam says. “And then he’ll come home.”

Cas inspects his hands, looks to his right, out at the passing scenery. “I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> Sam says he drove a similar car here, because he did: [ the Continental in The End.](http://larinah.tumblr.com/post/73429803909/the-end-of-the-road-trip-the-top-picture-is-from)
> 
> Kind of freaks me out, to be honest.


End file.
